A lifelong dress lover tries out the new baggy yet bewitching trousers. Read more about how to wear pants for daytime, cocktails, or dinner.

I have eschewed pants for the better part of 20 years, the thinking being that I'm too short, too hippy, and too lady in my crooked little fashion core.

When my high school girlfriends were gamely flitting about to pep rallies, football games, and the skating rink in skinny jeans with zippers at the ankles, I was usually the odd girl out in one of my ample array of kicky Benetton and Esprit dresses.

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As time wore on and I secured my tiny perch in the fashion world, I still clung to dresses and skirts. Yes, they became pricey designer versions or even flowy, printed vintage numbers, but I stuck to that ultrafeminine silhouette. So while the stick-thin, French-looking gamine reeds rocked pants of all sorts — cool high-waisted denim, slim trousers, and then those ubiquitous liquid leggings — I coveted them but nixed them as an option. My philosophy? I wasn't meant to be a louche-looking fashion type. Old-school Hitchcock heroine, that's all me.

Then I had a funny sort of style metamorphosis, if you will. Last season, Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent conjured carrot-shaped pants that piqued my interest. (In fact, the designer has been championing a new trouser silhouette for the past six seasons.) While shopping this past fall, on a lark, I tried a pair of full-on dhoti pants from Tsumori Chisato. They were high-waisted, pleated, droopy harems cuffed at the bottom. Horrors! They embodied every single pant trap I've avoided for decades. Yet they were divine. Somehow the proportions of the waist and the pleats and the loose leg worked — with a major heel, but still. That purchase emboldened me to search out additional pleated pants, and for spring I found the perfect lightweight pair with a more tailored feel at Miu Miu. Note: No flats, no-how with these roomy numbers; otherwise, the look becomes more frumpy than fabulous.

For fall, designers like Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Stella McCartney, and Hannah MacGibbon for Chloé sent out another slew of modern trousers, and the shape keeps getting chicer and more innovative. The line from the pleated waist to the crop just above the ankle is a perfect parenthesis hiding a multitude of sins in between.

"They are so flattering because it's an easy, forgiving fit," says designer Veronica Etro, whose thick wool styles in a bevy of autumnal hues are must-haves. One's hips, rear, and thighs are lost in folds of fabric — no "too tight" material straining against curves. Brilliant.

"They give you the volume you always feel you have with a full skirt," says Pilati. He's spot-on. That's exactly their appeal, but you've got the relaxed, boyish ease of pants. "They allow freedom, movement, flexibility," says Donna Karan, whose sublime full versions are a feat of expert tailoring. "Yet they aren't as masculine."

They should come with a user's manual, however. Pilati cautions that finding the right pants with the right fit is essential. "You have to manage the volume of the fabric. Otherwise, you can end up looking like a wagon." And that, of course, should be avoided at all costs.

Once you've found the cut that works, the rest is easy. Akris designer Albert Kriemler, hailed as the pant king by fashion insiders, recommends pairing a short or cropped-length jacket with more voluminous pants. Add a simple tank and accessories with lots of punch — a statement necklace, a wild sky-high shoe, and a painted skin bag — and your fashion vibe will transform into one of luxe style with just the right amount of garçon panache, for a look that has legs.